Red Faction: Armageddon Review - Xbox 360

The Volition team is well known for taking a genre and creating something new with it. Saints Row comes to mind, where many critics called it a GTA clone, the game featured customisations that GTA fanboys could only dream of, as well as hostage situations to die for. When Red Faction: Guerrilla bursted onto the scenes, Saints Row 2 was already established as the best of its genre, so fans were eager to try an open-world game set on a different world. Red Faction: Guerrilla was a success. We here at Sliced loved the freedom to explore Mars and take out bases as we progressed through a thrilling adventure which ultimately almost led to the destruction of civilisation on the planet.

Enter Red Faction: Armageddon. Set fifty years after its predecessor, you are Darius Mason, grandson of the main character from the first game. Throughout the story there are a lot of typical jabs at the Mason family, and players can expect references to Guerrilla throughout. With all new weaponry and the power to rebuild structures that you’ve destroyed, Red Faction: Armageddon sounded like the next step in the off-world adventure series that we’d come to appreciate this generation. Read on to find out how this addition to the series sizes up.

Gameplay

First of all, Red Faction: Armageddon is not a free-roam game. This is imperative to the review as it completely changes the landscape of what gamers might have expected jumping across from the previous game in the franchise, Red Faction: Guerrilla. Armageddon is as linear as Halo. The game is completely different to Guerrilla, with no side missions, no cruising, just one linear 10-hour storyline to follow. Fans that were hoping for another open-world game should not be too shocked though, because if you love the Red Faction franchise you’ll appreciate what Volition has done with Armageddon.

As you progress through Armageddon, the story gradually builds and so too does your arsenal. The weapons Mason can use in Armageddon are as sci-fi as you’d want them to be. Want to clear out a bunch of aliens completely? Just use the black hole gun! Don’t like the look of a building? Use your beam of light weapon to slice its bottom layer off and then watch it crumble. All your standard shooter weapons are included as well, such as the assault rifle, shotgun and pistols, but another thing that separates Red Faction Armageddon from other shooters is the unique abilities that you can purchase and unlock throughout the game.

As you progress through the story, more perks will become available. Perks such as extra health and more ammo are standard, but you also get what’s known as Nano Forge abilities. Three different Nano Forge abilities have you feeling like a god. First up is a bubble shield much like what was introduced to the Halo series in Halo 3. Inside the shield, you can kill foes easier. As you upgrade the shield, it will ...